A novice philosopher turned equestrian…

Note To Self

And I mean, never. Urgh. What a horrible thing to ride in. Perhaps it was because I’d just been riding in a GP saddle, but getting onto a horse in a show saddle straight after just felt wrong on every possible level. I felt like I was losing my position, despite reassurances that I wasn’t, and spent the entire time feeling ever so slightly out of control.

Horrible. Needless to say, I will notbe buying one of those in future! I’ll stick to nice normal chunky tack thank you very please.

The only other downside to the day happened to kind of take over. My left shoulder and arm decided it would be a real hootto seize up, cramp and cease all functionality. “Oooh yippeeeeee,” I thought as my arm completely locked, agony ensued and I ended up clutching at my own limb, eyes closed and tears streaming, “Woopdeefuckingdoo.”

My arm was already causing me some difficulty with my riding today actually. I’m not entirely sure what was going on with it, but it meant that working on the right rein was a bit tricky. Keeping that consistent give and take motion with my left arm on the outside was nigh on impossible. I physically couldn’t do it. Which was a shame really because it meant I couldn’t do half of the exercises I wanted to during the session. I ended up feeling like a bit of a dunceto be honest. My physical issue meant that I completely blanked outmentally, lost all my concentration and ended up not really knowing what to do. All because I was hurting. Stupid.

I didmanage to successfully lunge a horse in a chambon. Which is something I’ve not done before so I was quite pleased to have managed that. I got her going in a really nice trot and she started working long, low and light in front. Beautiful. I felt pretty confident doing it today as well, which was nice. Kelly was watching and giving me the odd pointer every so often, but on the whole I really felt like I was actually doing it properly, on my own. Which made me happy, as it’s nice to get that feeling of “ooh, I can do that” once in a while.

I can’t help but harp back to the issue with my shoulder. It’s really bugging me, and sometimes I find the best way to ‘let go’ of that kind of thing is to get the frustration out of my head and put it somewhere else. That’s where you, dear blog reader, come in. Ooh you lucky thing you. Bet you’re really glad you stopped by now…

It was one of those moments where, yet again, I was too hard on myself which meant that one little issue on one day had me questioning allof my choices and decisions and wondering whether I’d ever be able to do it properly again. It also made me start apologising profusely to everyone about everything, when there was really nothing to apologise for. And it threw everything else I did into doubt as well. My arm was hurting, so I spent my whole time thinking “oh god, my position is appalling” and “well why am I even bothering, it’s not like I’m good enough to get the horse to work properly.”

Get a grip, girl. Seriously!

My arm will get better and it is not the end of the world that I had a less than satisfactory riding session. That said, it was only a bad session from my point of view. Kelly seemed pleased with what I’d done and praised what work I’d achieved from the horses. So, that’s better than her thinking it was a total disaster as well.

It strikes me as a little unfair that now I am actually treating my body right by being fit and toned and healthy, I am suffering from this kind of physical pain. But then I suppose it’s all down to the fact that I am actually usingmy body nowadays. Back in the days where I used to sit around and take my natural fitness for granted, I didn’t use myself. That meant there was nothing going on to agitate parts of my body and let me know that something was weak or needed fixing. Now that I’m using my whole body every day, pretty much every part of me is shouting “AAAAAAAAH this isn’t fair?!” all the time. Typical.